Corrado wrote:Who cares? Honestly, the pitchers (Clemens) were juicing, and the hitters were juicing... then whats the real problem? No one had an unfair advantage.

That's only true if you think the PEDs were used in roughly proportional numbers by pitchers and hitters, and if you think they have equivalent effects.

PRIME1 wrote: Ban all the juicers from the HoF and wipe their records.

You can decide to ignore their achievements (ie hand the single-season HR record back to Maris) but you can't wipe their playing records -- note without affecting the records of every pitcher who ever pitched to them and every fielder who ever recorded an out against them. (And likewise you can't wipe the records of the juicing pitchers).

Frankly, I don't care about the HoF -- I'll never visit, and the voting process is more than a bit of a joke -- so they can do whatever they want as it won't affect the game being played. The steroids era is an unfortunate one for baseball, just like the segregated era that allowed white players to pad their stats by not playing against all the best players, and the gambling era that culminated in the Black Sox scandal (though there were plenty of cases of teams throwing games before that). Not to mention the players like Gaylord Perry who were still scuffing and doctoring balls long after Roy Chapman's death (and long after the remaining grandfathered spitballers had left the game) or the teams that were stealing signs and corking bats. Baseball survived all of that, and it'll survive this too.

It's interesting that despite all the best efforts of the pharmaceutical dark arts, the best hitters still fail more 60% of the time. And the artificial enhancements that unambiguously help with that -- contact lenses and corrective eye surgery -- are allowed and completely uncontroversial.

PRIME1 wrote:Punish the people caught cheating. Simple as that. Ban all the juicers from the HoF and wipe their records. That would hopefully send a message to everyone that it's not acceptable.

Sadly there are plenty of people like you who at the very least accept it (or even embrace it), hence MLB has no real reason to fix it. So they may as well throw in a tag team cage match to the next world series because it's all fake.

Accept it? Again, you're making stuff up. I believe players having unfair advantages is a reality of major league sports and that includes baseball. I think we can either we can either do one of two things. 1.) Treat it as another Era in MLB history where certain players had unfair advantages. We'd treat the steroid users like those same players of past eras. or 2.) Wipe out not only the Steroid Era but the various other eras in MLB history where players had unfair advantages. I of course believe you'd never actually go for number 2 because it would ruin your precious image of sports (un)reality.

It's not fake, it's simply unfair. This weren't weren't staged events (at least in the case of the Steroid Era), simply players had unfair advantages but the events STILL HAPPENED.

Specifically this exerpt, "The one thing that bothers me (and others) is McGwire's refusal to link steroids with enhanced power. I pressed him on it Monday, and he would not agree that there's a connection. It was all about his health and recovering from injuries. He insisted his power numbers were valid; the added clout came through improved hitting mechanics.

"There is no way that a pill or an injection will give you the hand-eye coordination you need to hit a baseball," McGwire said. "There's one thing that I know: I was born a home run hitter."

So McGwire believes that it wasn't the steroids that made him into a record setting home run hitter, it was his change in mechanics and approach. That somewhat sounds familiar.

ifittakesforever wrote:"There is no way that a pill or an injection will give you the hand-eye coordination you need to hit a baseball," McGwire said. "There's one thing that I know: I was born a home run hitter."

So McGwire believes that it wasn't the steroids that made him into a record setting home run hitter, it was his change in mechanics and approach. That somewhat sounds familiar.

Not saying I agree 100%, BUT

He was born a home run hitter. He set a rookie record for HR, he hit a lot of HR. Then the injuries hit and he missed huge chunks of time. If, as he says, the steroids helped him heal faster and better, then maybe the extra power numbers came from the fact that he was able to get on the field more often.

Or maybe the answer is "all of the above" and the steroids gave him the ability to get on the field more and turned what were warning track outs in 1988 into HR in 1998.

Excerpt: "But I became a better hitter. If you look at the evolution of my swing change, nobody ever analyzed that. I was a back-legged hitter, I would hit these towering fly balls that went over walls by five feet. But I started learning how to drive through the baseball and create backspin.... Hey, I acknowledged that I used steroids for health purposes, to get back on the field, get more at-bats, play in more games. It allowed my body to recover and feel like it used to feel."

If you go back to the videotape and watch his swing from his rookie year to his 1998 season, there are differences and that's what McGwire is referencing here. I'm sure that whatever he was taking was instrumental to his staying healthy and on the field significantly more than he was in the mid 90's, but he also changed some things about his swing and it seems like the combination of the two was what propelled him to break records.

Of course, it could all just be attributed to the steroids and nothing else, right DerFunk? No extra hard work, no change in mechanics, no differing approach... it's all the steroids.

Skrying wrote:Clearly they helped him. If he seriously believes it only aided his health then not only did he cheat but he's delusional.

That's what he thinks. The interview I watched, they flat out asked him why he continued to keep using even after he was having his best games ever. He claimed he was still "breaking down". Whatever.

The funny thing is I'm actually not against using roids or similar products to recover from injury. As long as your off the junk like 3-6 months before rejoining your team.

I still think Sosa is an even bigger douchebag. With his corked bat and "me spek no englash".

Once again I still blame MLB. I think McDonalds has a more stringent drug testing program than they do.

Right on with the Sosa/McDonalds comment! I agree that MLB has been neglectful in policing itself.

What Big Mac meant about breaking down was that he was having terrible problems with his feet, specifically plantar fasciitis (see https://health.google.com/health/ref/Plantar+fasciitis). You can't hit homers it you can't stand up. Anti inflammatory meds are often the prescribed treatment.

ifittakesforever wrote:Of course, it could all just be attributed to the steroids and nothing else, right DerFunk? No extra hard work, no change in mechanics, no differing approach... it's all the steroids.

No, dumbass, I didn't say they were mutually exclusive. I said it wasn't all a change in mechanics.

edit: And actually, McGwire being on steroids prior to and during the 1998 season kinda helps my argument, don't you think? Nobody is arguing McGwire is correct; he's as deluded as you are.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.

ifittakesforever wrote:Of course, it could all just be attributed to the steroids and nothing else, right DerFunk? No extra hard work, no change in mechanics, no differing approach... it's all the steroids.

No, dumbass, I didn't say they were mutually exclusive. I said it wasn't all a change in mechanics.

edit: And actually, McGwire being on steroids prior to and during the 1998 season kinda helps my argument, don't you think? Nobody is arguing McGwire is correct; he's as deluded as you are.

You never even once acknowledged that Sosa made a change in anything he did, just attibuted it all to steroids. No matter what articles or evidence was linked stating that, in apparent addition to the steroids Sosa made a big change in his mechanics, there you were the whole time with your fingers in your ears chanting that it was all due to the steroids. Now we have McGwire admit to as much, but depending on the articles you read as to when he started using, it wasn't until he changed his mechanics that he became a beast at hitting home runs.

I realize that this goes against your mantra of "it's because of the steroids", but if he was taking steroids since the early 90's, why wasn't he hitting 60 or 70 in the early 90's when he was healthy and playing 145+ games a year?

How do you justify your stance that Sosa was completely a creation of steroids and nothing else, yet McGwire was a combination of both? Is it homerism, that McGwire is a Cardinal and you just can't see straight when it comes to the Cubs?

it's true that they both cheated, but it is also true that McGwire has always been a home run king. Sosa appears to have gotten much more additional size and strength from his shots.

I don't think it's that cut and dry. Sosa came up as a 19 year old, he was scrawny at the time, but there are a lot of kids out of high school that fill out over the next few years. Not to say his size gains weren't chemically aided, just that he was young.

His first couple years with the White Sox were with Walt Hriniak as the hitting instructor and it was known back then that they were trying to alter Sosa's swing to fit in more with the theories that Hriniak had, swinging down on the ball and such. If you remember the White Sox of Ventura, Lance Johnson, Joey Cora, you'll notice the similarities of their swings and Hriniak's influence. Sosa had a hard time adjusting to that theory of hitting and had said as much when he got traded to the Cubs. His first year with the Cubs was 1992 and he was injured most of the year. He turned 23 that year, the same age as McGwire's rookie of the year campaign. Sosa's next year was his first full year away from a hitting intstructor that was trying to change him and he responded with 33 home runs. So at roughly the same age, each hit 30+ home runs.

Now none of this is to say that Sosa didn't benefit from steroids, only thing we don't know for sure is when he started taking them. My guess would be around 1996 as that is when his stolen base totals started to drop, possibly the result of carrying around more weight and losing some speed. By 1999 he had basically given up on stealing bases.

it's true that they both cheated, but it is also true that McGwire has always been a home run king. Sosa appears to have gotten much more additional size and strength from his shots.

I don't think it's that cut and dry. Sosa came up as a 19 year old, he was scrawny at the time, but there are a lot of kids out of high school that fill out over the next few years. Not to say his size gains weren't chemically aided, just that he was young.

His first couple years with the White Sox were with Walt Hriniak as the hitting instructor and it was known back then that they were trying to alter Sosa's swing to fit in more with the theories that Hriniak had, swinging down on the ball and such. If you remember the White Sox of Ventura, Lance Johnson, Joey Cora, you'll notice the similarities of their swings and Hriniak's influence. Sosa had a hard time adjusting to that theory of hitting and had said as much when he got traded to the Cubs. His first year with the Cubs was 1992 and he was injured most of the year. He turned 23 that year, the same age as McGwire's rookie of the year campaign. Sosa's next year was his first full year away from a hitting instructor that was trying to change him and he responded with 33 home runs. So at roughly the same age, each hit 30+ home runs.

Now none of this is to say that Sosa didn't benefit from steroids, only thing we don't know for sure is when he started taking them. My guess would be around 1996 as that is when his stolen base totals started to drop, possibly the result of carrying around more weight and losing some speed. By 1999 he had basically given up on stealing bases.

You're right on the "nothings cut and dry"----- "only their hairdresser (Canseco's role in all of this?) knows for sure"!

I've watched just about all the Cardinal's games on TV since well, "forever", and watched Sammy grow between Cards - Cubs games within the same year! It was amazing! Big Mac started out big and got humongous, so it just seemed natural because that's what sluggers seem to do. Mac was a crazy man in the gym, too. He worked out harder than anyone on the team, maybe even the league. He was well known for that.

What's weird for me, as a baseball fan of 50 yrs, I simply enjoyed watching Mac, Sosa, Bonds, and all the rest, smash the ball! Maybe there should be a PED League so we could see the homers and still keep the MLB records "intact" ( if we even want to call it that)

Since no one seemed to care that steroids were prevalent in baseball back in 1998 and the home run race was good for baseball, if Barry Bonds wasn't such a polarizing figure to put it politely, would there have been such a backlash against steroid use in the MLB? It seems like only after he came along to start breaking records that people decided that steroids were bad and needed to be investigated. I can remember the 1988 playoffs with Boston and Oakland and the Boston fans were chanting "steroids" whenever Canseco did anything and it obviously didn't matter to MLB back then.

ifittakesforever wrote:How do you justify your stance that Sosa was completely a creation of steroids and nothing else, yet McGwire was a combination of both?

Quit putting words in my mouth. If you can't do that, we can't have a conversation, because you're having sides of it.

And Sosa proved me right by testing positive. It wasn't all a change in hitting philosophy. Actually, I was quite prescient prior to either of them testing positive when I said:

Dude, if a Cardinals fan like me can come to grips with McGwire being on the juice, you can certainly wake yourself up to Slammy Sammy Sosa.

I'm sorry you're too **** dumb to understand. I'll try to use smaller words for you, in a bigger font so you can read it clearly.

They were both products of steroids.

I've been right on both of them since long before either of them were reported to have been juicing.

And another thing you're apparently too dumb to understand: nobody within baseball cared in 1998 because nobody was going to games before those two guys came along. If not for McGwire and Sosa, we'd all be watching hockey.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.